Mystery Mansion Rules

[Sheryl Cohen]

Does anyone have a copy of the rules to Mystery Mansion? I bought a
"complete" game on ebay only it's missing the rules. Is it a fun game?

[MGagan]

Sheryl Cohen <sher...@earthlink.net> wrote in article
<370A9EDA...@earthlink.net>...

> Does anyone have a copy of the rules to Mystery Mansion? I bought a
> "complete" game on ebay only it's missing the rules. Is it a fun game?

Except that it takes a long time to put together all the rooms before you
can play for the first time, it is a very enjoyable family game. I got it
at discount for $7.99 several years ago and played it over a dozen times
with my younger brother and sister - one of my all time great purchases,
value-wise. You have to be careful not to lose any of the chests, though,
or the game becomes useless. That's what eventually happened for us, and I
had to toss the rest of the game. Good luck finding the rules! I think
it's out of print, because I've never seen it again.

--
Matthew Gagan
(mgag...@idt.net)

[Kyle Miller]

I don't know about the original version, but I've seen the recent version
(with an electronic component like Omega Virus) at Toys R Us for under $10.

Sheryl Cohen <sher...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:370A9EDA...@earthlink.net...

[Bob Scherer-Hoock]

I'm doing this from memory, and I assume it's the Mystery Mansion game in a
huge box with an electronic "guide". (Someone in another post mentioned an
"original version" that I don't know anything about.) Basically you start
by turning on the electronic box (I think it says "welcome"). Each player
has three - for lack of a better term - action points on each turn.
Possible actions are 1) Move from one room to another; 2) Search a piece of
furniture for a clue; 3) Challenge another player in an attempt to steal a
clue card. You can do each of these actions once on a turn, or any one of
them three times, or one of them twice, another once and the third not at
all.

In order:

1) Each move from one room to another is one point. If you're the first to
enter a room, you enter the two-digit code number for the room into the
electronic box and it tells you what furniture to place in the room (I
should have mentioned that at the start, the entire board is empty. All
players start at the front door, and the first move is always into the
front, center room.) Some rooms are locked. To enter them you must have a
key clue card. If you don't have one, you remain in the room you're
entering from but can use any actions you may have left.

2) To search a piece of furniture for a clue, you must be in a room with
that item of furniture. Use the magnifying class to view the three-digit
code number for the furniture, and enter that number into the computer. You
may get an audible clue that everyone can use, or it may give you a clue on
the LCD readout that's for your eyes only. Sometimes it asks if you have a
certain clue card in your possession and you respond by pressing the yes or
no keys for a further response from the box.

3) To challenge another player for one of their clue cards, you must be in
the same room with that player. The challenger rolls the die. Then the
person being challenged rolls. High number wins; ties go to the defender.
If the attacker/challenger wins, they get to look at the defender's clue
cards and take one of them.

Among the cards that come with the game are 10 (I think) clue cards. These
are shuffled and placed face down near the game board at the start. Some
searches of furniture tell you "You've found a clue" and at that point you
may draw the top card off the stack and keep it. Two cards are keys for
locked rooms, half the rest are people and the other half are objects. To
win you must search the piece of furniture where the "money" is hidden, and
have both the person and the object cards that are required to search that
piece of furniture. The other cards supplied with the game are just to
remind players what actions are available (move, search, challenge) and are
not essential to the play of the game.

My kids love this game, play it all the time, and it's entertaining enough
that I don't mind playing with them. There's not a lot of logical deduction
needed to find the "money"; mostly it's an exercise in searching until you
find the right piece of furniture where it's "hidden". But since there's so
much furniture in the game, it can take a while. If you pay attention to
the clues given out by the machine, and take some notes, you do get some
direction as to where to look.

Hope this helps.

Bob Scherer-Hoock